You stay, I stay
by bhut
Summary: AU ep 1x06. Captain Ryan has survived his encounter with the future predator. Now what?
1. Chapter 1

**You stay, I stay**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: contains spoilers for the official series._

Middle Cretaceous, 106 MYA

"Captain," the voice of Helen Cutter could, probably, kill a small dinosaur from two hundred paces away, "this is getting annoying. I am positive that you may not care about my plans, whatever they are, but I can also assure you that I do not care about yours. Please leave."

"Helena," Tom Ryan replied, watching how the face of the anthropologist turned time traveller did not twitch. "I told you before – you go, I go. You stay, I stay."

"Why?" Helen said, as she shifted her position on top of a tree. "What for did you travel so far on such a flimsy excuse after _me_? What value do I contain for your personal history?"

"You saved my life," Ryan said simply, "remember?"

Late Permian, 250 MYA

_This is my end,_ Ryan thought simply, _I just never thought that it will look like this._

The gape of the future predator reeked. Just moments ago Ryan was discharging his own weapon at the monstrous animal – and had missed. The scattered gunfire, caused by Ryan's bout of nervousness, was about to prove his own undoing, as the monstrous animal was about to deliver the fatal bite.

A very large crossbow bolt struck the future predator in the torso, sinking in deep, and causing it to roll away from Ryan, clearly dying.

"What are you waiting for? Run, you fool!" Helen swore, as she retreated, still holding onto her discharged crossbow.

Ryan looked around, saw that the giant gorgonopsid had finished feasting on the future predator's young and now was sniffing around and looking in their direction, and followed suit, deciding that discretion is the better part of valour, this time.

Middle Cretaceous, 106 MYA

"So, I did save you, though I know not why," Helen admitted. "What of it?"

"That makes two of us, I suppose," Ryan nodded sombrely, "but save my life you did, and I owe you. Plus, Ms. Brown has told me often enough that I could use a vacation, so here I am. Where are we going next?"

"Well, I'm staying right here, while you have a choice: go back or go into that carnivore's stomach," Helen responded in a particularly "colorless" tone of voice.

Whether or not the linguistic combination "military intelligence" is an oxymoron, Ryan was quite capable of quick thought and/or action: within moments he had joined Helen on her tree. "What carnivore, where?" he added as an afterthought.

"There," Helen spoke, still placidly.

And Ryan saw it. A meat-eating dinosaur, similar to the ones in Cutter's pictures, with a rather tiger-like coloration and a hungry look.

"Looks rather like the allosaurs I saw in the Late Jurassic time period," Helen continued to narrate, "but quite a bit smaller, I confess." She turned to Ryan. "Do you still really think that following me around will be worthwhile? Because I'm pretty sure that it is not."

"Maybe," Ryan said, thoughtfully eyeing the prehistoric beast that balefully eyed them in response. "Maybe. But nothing ventured nothing gained and all that. Where will we go from here?"

End


	2. Chapter 2

**Talking at a campfire**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapter._

Middle Cretaceous, 106 MYA

"Well, this is a nice place," Ryan said a short while later, after the carnivore became bored with stalking them and walked off. "Very lush and tropical. Where are we? Or, if you want me to sound clever, _when_ are we?"

"In the Cretaceous," Helen replied simply. "Quite a few million years away from the meteorite, so don't worry about that."

"Glad to hear this," Ryan nodded plaintively. "And where exactly in the Cretaceous are we?"

"Last time I saw plants like this... this was Antarctica," Helen explained helpfully. "How'd you like that?"

"Antarctica? Fancy that," Ryan whistled in surprise. "Never thought that I'll ever come to the South Pole, let alone during the time of the dinosaurs."

Helen just nodded and settled down at her side of the campfire. The flickering shadows made her almost completely invisible, thanks for her eyes that glowed in the light, luminous and moist.

Silence fell, and after a minute or twelve, Ryan decided to break it. "So, this is what you do in your spare time when you're not trying mess with the others' minds? Just go camping and relax? Got to admit, I cannot find a flaw in this right away."

"You forget," Helen replied after another minute or six, "that while my body relaxes, my mind's as sharp as ever and I don't mess with your minds: I just look like I do, and you do all the rest. It's not so much fun as it is easy."

"Hah," Ryan spoke after another minute or eight, "and knowing most of us closely enough doesn't hurt any, does it?"

"No. It does not," Helen agreed.

Silence fell, until Helen broke it, this time. "It's probably going to rain soon. I can feel it in my leg."

"Oh? How's that?" Ryan asked, genuinely curious.

"A souvenir from the Carboniferous," Helen grimaced. "Bad story." She looked up. Instinctively, Ryan did too, just in time to see a glowing green meteor streak across the sky.

"...If this was our time, I would say that that came from Orion's Belt," Ryan confessed, "but this isn't our time – even the stars are different right now, aren't they?"

"Yes, it's the small things like that that make you understand the enormity of what the time anomalies are," Helen confessed, as she leaned to the tree trunk behind her. "You sure that you don't want to get back? Don't you have a significant other to get back to?"

"Don't you?" Ryan shot back.

"No," Helen shook her head. "Whatever I still have for Nick, it's all but gone, thanks to him."

"And you're completely blameless?" Ryan said sarcastically.

The glare that Helen gave him killed Ryan's sarcasm at the root. Ryan had been glared before by all sorts of people, including James Lester, but this glare was something else yet again.

"Yes," Helen said matter-of-factly, "I am, and as long as you're with me, don't you forget it! Now pack up and get up, we're leaving this place behind!"

"Oh? How so? And watch your tone with me-" Ryan trailed off as he heard something else: the sound of running water that wasn't there just a moment ago. "Where is it coming from?"

"A time anomaly," Helen said flatly, as she led (and Ryan followed) out of their shelter. "See?"

And Ryan saw: a time anomaly, opened in a dry creek bed, releasing a shallow but steady stream of water.

"Ready to go?" Helen asked simply.

And so they went.

End


	3. Chapter 3

**Colourful characters**

_See previous chapters._

Time unknown

"So, where are we now?" Ryan asked of Helen, as the two of them had waded to the shore of a small body of water. Initially a lake or a large pond, it was now much, much shallower than before, due to the time anomaly leaking its water into the Middle Cretaceous.

"I have no idea," Helen replied as she took stock of their surroundings. "Hmm... Sand, the distinctive smells of sea salt and olive trees, sun in the practically cloudless sky... I think that we just might be in the Mediterranean region."

"Hmm. Italy?"

"Or Greece," Helen nodded in reply. "Crete, maybe."

"Crete?" Ryan muttered, as the two of them finally left the body of water and went into the olive tree grove. "Fancy that! Do you have any idea what time period it is, though?"

"Not straight away, no," Helen confessed as they walked into the olive grove to find some shade from the sun and found it already occupied: mostly by men, armed with bronzed shields, and long bronze-tipped spears (and also short swords) and leather & bronze armour. The only occupants who _were not_ equipped like that were a pair of teenagers, clearly roughened-up and bound.

"Helen," Ryan hissed as the men began to slowly get up, demonstrating that they had some throwing javelins as well. "You got any weapons?"

"I got my assembling crossbow, some bolts for ammo, and one or two composite fishing spears," Helen hissed back. "I need some time to pull them out and assemble, though!"

"Does it look like we have time?" Ryan asked rhetorically, as the Bronze Age soldiers (or warriors, whatever they were) began to approach them, slowly at first but picking-up speed when they saw that neither Helen nor Ryan were armed. And then-

A loud and threatening roar caused everyone to freeze, as the theropod dinosaur from the Middle Cretaceous Antarctica had followed Helen and Ryan to Crete (or mainland Greece), and was looking decisively out of place in such a clear area, being coloured in a rather tiger-like manner, albeit with a greenish, than a reddish, colour.

"Oh dear," Helen muttered to no one in particular as the dinosaur charged.

Several things happened at once: the guards of the two teenagers scattered (for while the dinosaur was no taller than a man was, it was easily 6 meters long, and had enough muscle to weigh, probably, half a ton – not something you want to mess with); Ryan fled towards the two prisoners (who had frozen in panic at the sight of the dinosaur instead); and Helen fled towards the dinosaur instead.

The dinosaur snapped.

Helen ducked and slid under the dinosaur's belly.

The dinosaur whirled around, but Helen was not there already: she was running around the dinosaur, always staying away from the end that had the teeth and the snapping jaws. Naturally, she could not keep up this speed and dexterity for long... but she did not have too: a javelin buried itself in the dinosaur's flank.

The dinosaur stopped, looked around and saw one of the soldiers throw his second javelin at it. The cause-and-effect were obvious even to the dinosaur's rather dim mind, and it charged, ignoring the second javelin as the weapon hit it as well, grabbing the new attacker and tearing into him with its clawed forelimbs.

Ryan, meanwhile, was having his own problems: one of the warriors _had not_ run away and was trying to fight Ryan off. Though Ryan was now armed with a dropped spear from another warrior, his opponent had much better knowledge how to fight with these antique weapons, and Ryan was at a disadvantage, as he had to fight-off his opponent's sword-and-shield combo.

As Ryan (to his embarrassment) slipped on some tree roots and fell, his opponent swung his sword (which, admittedly, was more of a stabbing than slashing variety)... and was enveloped in a crude fishing net, slowing him down enough for Ryan to grab him and slam him into the tree, making the other man drop like a rock.

"Took you long enough," Helen huffed, as she joined Ryan in untangling the teenagers' bindings. "We got to leave while the carnivore's occupied."

"With what?" Ryan asked, rather stupidly, and looked in the dinosaur's direction. By now, the dinosaur had discarded the first warrior (who was largely clawed to shreds by now anyways) and was charging at another one, who was trying to stab the dinosaur with his spear. The dinosaur largely twisted out of the spear's thrust, and swung its jaws like a hatchet at the warrior's head, slamming the jaws shut.

"Right," Ryan muttered, "dumb question." By now he and Helen had the teenagers' legs untied at any rate, and they began to pull them away from the olive grove, leaving the battle behind, as the dinosaur roared in either anger or triumph over the warriors.

End


	4. Chapter 4

**Colourful characters II**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their respective owners._

"Well, now what?" Ryan asked some time later, after the sounds of the battle had vanished away in the distance. "Helen, do you have any ideas?"

"Not now, I'm trying to figure out what they're saying," Helen muttered crossly in reply, and indeed, the two teens were trying to say something, albeit in a language that Ryan has never heard before, and he wasn't sure that Helen had, either.

"It's all Greek to me," Ryan confessed to his... well, whatever Helen was to him.

"Same here," Helen agreed, "it's just that... it's not the same Greek I was used to. I understand at best one word in five or so, and that's being generous, actually."

"Okay," Ryan nodded widely, deciding to skip Helen's linguistic revelations. "Well, what do you understand?"

"Phrixus... Hella... Athamant... Ino... Beothia," Helen listed what she had learned, before changing the topic abruptly: "Incidentally, look around: is anybody stalking us?"

"Um," Ryan snuck a peak and looked around their hideout. "So far seems to be so good. That is not to say that there may be a team of ninjas or samurais or whoever stalking us, but so far so good."

There was a pause, as Helen just glared at Ryan. "Fine," she finally said, clearly keeping her temper in check because of witnesses. "What do you suggest that we do with them?"

"Get them out of here?" Ryan suggested simply. "I doubt that they were liked too much around here, judging from the conditions we found them in."

"Point," Helen admitted reluctantly. "But think that they're up to it?"

Ryan and Helen looked at the two frightened teenagers.

"Probably not," Ryan admitted, "but we still got to try, don't we?"

Ryan and Helen looked at the two frightened teenagers once more and then at each other. "I'll assemble the crossbow," Helen muttered.

"Yes, that's a good idea," Ryan agreed. "We could use a crossbow."

Helen glared.

/

Getting back to the time anomaly proved to be relatively easy and uneventful. The surviving warriors – if any – had fled, and the carnivore had pursued them, leaving the time anomaly behind as well.

That is not to say that the time anomaly was unattended: another pair of dinosaurs – completely different dinosaurs from the tiger-striped predator – were browsing among the olive grove instead.

"What are they?" Ryan asked Helen.

"Dinosaurs. Plant-eating dinosaurs," Helen replied matter-of-factly as the two giants – the bigger one being easily 4 meters tall while standing on all fours – browsed. "You're talking to the wrong Cutter, you know? I'm anthropologist, not a palaeontologist."

"Point," Ryan admitted. "But we cannot just leave them here, can we?"

"All right," Helen gave in surprisingly quickly. "What do you suggest?"

"Well," Ryan muttered thoughtfully, not fully realizing that even as they spoke, Helen manoeuvred him and the teenagers ever closer to the time anomaly, away from the dinosaurs. "I still have your crossbow."

"Yes?" Helen responded, sounding rather wary for once. "What of it?"

"Well, I'm thinking of firing a warning shot, see?" Ryan nodded and fired one, just over the smaller herbivore.

The smaller dinosaur (it still vastly towered over Ryan and others) was not amused, but bellowed to its parent or partner for assistant. The bigger herbivore was not amused either, as it stopped browsing and bellowed at Ryan even louder, before charging straight at him.

"Run!" Helen yelled, using pretty much the same tone of voice that Abby used on Connor several days ago (and centuries in the future), and Ryan, seeing how several tons of bad-tempered dinosaur were about to trample him, did just that.

To be more precise, Ryan fled following Helen and the teenagers through the time anomaly, the bigger dinosaur followed him, and the smaller dinosaur followed the bigger one...just as the time anomaly snapped shut, trapping the four humans in the Middle Cretaceous Antarctica. (For the two dinosaurs, this was home, so they did not count.)

"Okay, that was unexpected," Ryan confessed to Helen, as he, her and their new charges stood, catching their breath (the plant-eating dinosaurs have forgotten all about them as soon as they were back in Antarctica).

Helen threw a rock at him.

"Ouch!"

End


	5. Chapter 5

**Living together**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Middle Cretaceous, Antarctica, 106 MYA

"No, this won't do," Ryan said two or three days later once things got settled down and the teenagers got confident that Helen and he won't vanish into thin air. "Helen, we cannot raise two teenagers by ourselves!"

"You don't raise teenagers – I think," Helen replied, as she roasted new fish on a spit. "They've been already raised. You just mosey alongside them and hope – in our case – that a new time anomaly opens that will bring us to people who can communicate with them – or James Lester and his crew."

"Helen, I don't wish James Lester on anyone who doesn't want him first," Ryan shook his head, thinking over the recent events.

Same time, same place, 2-3 days ago

"Well, here we are – back at home sweet home," Ryan said only with some sarcasm as he and Helen led their new... travelling companions (for the lack of a better word) to their original camp. "It may have dinosaurs, it may have I know not what else, but it doesn't have bronze-clad warriors armed with spears. Anyways, what do we do now?"

"Make a new net," Helen said flatly. "At least, that's what I will be doing. You can keep an eye on the – Phryx and Hella, I believe. Then, maybe, we can have dinner or avoid being dinner for another carnivore. How does that sound?"

"Surprisingly blank," Ryan confessed (since the teenagers did not appear to understand English at all).

"I prefer dexterous," Helen replied, "and by 'dexterous' I mean the sort of a plan that can be adapted to any sort of circumstance that we may encounter here – or being here, technically speaking."

"Point," Becker confessed before stopping abruptly. "Do you smell blood?"

"Of course," Helen said calmly. "That's why I was taking the long way around – to give us enough space to manoeuvre if the killer's still around... but I don't think that that's the case here."

"Oh? Why?" Ryan instinctively asked, before he – and the others - saw the carcass: yet another one of the tiger-striped meat-eaters, this one dead from several wounds on its head (especially jaws) and throat.

"Territorial fighting. A smaller, dead juvenile left to make a message to the others – Jurassic mother," Helen sighed. "How familiar this is!"

"To you maybe, not to me," Ryan said firmly. "What are you planning to do?"

"Well," Helen grinned for the first time since Ryan had followed her, "this." She pulled out a folding entrenching tool from her backpack and approached the corpse. "Soldier, we're eating red meat tonight!"

And she swung the shovel slash battle-axe.

2-3 days later

"Just what are you complaining about?" Helen asked the military man. "We ate meat instead of fish all these days, we fixed my net, all of our little party is hearty and hale – what is missing in your life?"

"Culture!" Ryan said firmly. "I need something – even a pack of cards..."

"They're distracting, but here," Helen pulled a pack of small-sized cards. "Satisfied? Never knew why I took them with me – now I know, I guess..."

"Hah," Ryan took them and looked them over. "Somewhat small, definitely shiny and new, but yes, they're definitely cards – probably modern ones too. Between the two of us, we can definitely teach the youngsters a game or two."

"I told you, they're distracting," Helen's voice became noticeably chillier. "You teach them the basics – you know, how three and seven differ from an ace – and I keep an eye on the surrounding, since someone has to!"

Ryan winced.

Yesterday

"All right, lad," Ryan told brightly the younger man, "meat is great and all, but it is time for us to go fishing!"

"You're going fishing? Why?" Helen asked (in part because the young man most definitely did not understand English, in part because she was Helen). "I thought that you liked meat!"

"I just want to bond with the lad," Ryan replied honestly. "After all – yes, I remember that you said that this was temporary, but until the right time anomaly opens up-"

"Manifests itself," Helen said sourly. "Very well, you want to fish with – Phrix? Try and fish with him, then. I just got a new net ready."

"And bonded with the lass in the process," Ryan said wryly. (It was true – the teenage girl joined in the net weaving, albeit reluctantly, at first.)

"I don't know if you can call it that," Helen replied. "Anyways, off you two go, and we two may follow to see what'll happen."

"Here we are, lad," Ryan said grandly after a brief but eventful trip through the Cretaceous jungle. "Never thought I say it, but ta-da!"

The teenager looked at Ryan, thoroughly confused. "Right," Ryan said quickly, "it doesn't look like anything fancy, but it is! Get ready to be impressed!"

He grabbed the net, whirled it around and cast at the river, just as he and Helen had done few times before they went through Ryan's second anomaly. Previously, it resulted in catching a certain amount of fish being caught, but this time it was something else: not really a young crocodile (though it was certainly big enough), but with unarmored, slimy-looking, black or dark grey skin, and a large and powerful head, combined with a powerful, oar-like tail that it used to project itself at Ryan and his companion.

"Whoa!" Ryan could only exclaim, as Helen (she and the teenage girl had been following the other two) grabbed them by the collars and pulled them away from the aquatic hunter. "What's that?"

"Some sort of a giant prehistoric newt or salamander," Helen explained helpfully. "The second biggest and baddest predator of this time and age of the allosaur or whatever that dinosaur's called."

"Oh," Ryan said simply. "So, no fish tonight?"

"No fish."

Same time, same place, 1 day later

"And that, kids, how you play cards," Ryan explained cheerfully as he showed the teenagers the basics of cards – which card trumps which, basically. "Now, to get onto the more complex stuff-"

"Time anomaly," Helen said suddenly.

"What?"

"Time anomaly," Helen repeated herself, as Ryan and others joined her at her vantage point. "See?"

"Yup," Ryan nodded excitedly, as they did see it glow even in the shaky and insecure light of middle Cretaceous jungle and release a black-and-scarlet ladybird of all things into this time. "Shall we go?"

"Yes!" Ryan said firmly, and so they went.

_TBC?_


	6. Chapter 6

**Jenny Wren**

_Disclaimer: see pervious chapters._

Pleistocene, 30,000 yrs ago

"Okay, this is definitely not modern times," Ryan said crossly, as he, Helen and the children stared at the woolly mammoths as the latter stared back at them across the water hole. "Guess we should've realized that ladybugs existed in prehistoric times too, eh?"

"Well, technically, this is modern times," Helen said placidly, as she put her backpack down, and causing a toad or two to jump away towards the waterhole. "Odds are, there _are_ Cro-Magnons around, or Neanderthals – but I would rather try our luck with our direct ancestors rather than our evolutionary cousins-"

"Helen," Ryan shook his head to clear it, while still keeping an eye out on the mammoths. "What are you doing?"

"Here," Helen pulled out a spare pair of shoes – similar to her own – out of the backpack. "Which one of our young friend should get it, and which one should wait?"

"Um, you have only one pair?" Ryan looked uncomfortable at making a choice.

"Yes. We'll have to make the other one the old-fashioned way, and by that I mean _old_," Helen said pointedly.

"Eh," Ryan twitched, "do we have to do it right now? Somehow I doubt that we'll be able to deal with the entire herd of mammoths in broad daylight."

"We're not," Helen said flatly. "A single deer will be enough to provide us with food and clothing – when we bring it down and prepare."

Ryan blinked again. "That might require some strategy," he said neutrally.

"Yes, but more importantly, it will require some deer," Helen agreed placidly, even as she pulled out and assembled her spear. "Because if there aren't any, I'm not messing with mammoths if I don't have to."

"Hmm. How about we start looking for a place to make camp as well?" Ryan suggested, carefully.

"Do you always have to state the obvious or is it just your military training talking?" Helen snapped.

Ryan opened his mouth to reply, when there was suddenly a sound of a gunshot going wild and several hares raced across a hill not too far away from the four of them.

"I thought this was the Ice Age!" he muttered to Helen quietly.

"It is!" Helen calmly replied. "It just may be that we aren't the only people who have arrived here via one or more time anomalies, you know? Why, there was one time, when..." Helen shook her head, clearly checking herself perhaps for the first time in a long while. "Never mind. Since the time anomaly _we_ came through has closed, we must leave the old-fashioned way, by walking. Any arguments?"

"Avoid the hill tops. Stick to the sides and even valleys. Yes, these are great places to get ambushed, but since we don't have firearms-"

Helen reached into her backpack and pulled one out. "Know how to use it?" she asked calmly.

"Webley mark VI," he said slowly. "Loaded."

"We can reload it, but only once," Helen said calmly, "until we get back, that is."

"Acknowledged," Ryan nodded, checked that the safety was on, and kept the revolver. "Nevertheless, this is close combat only, so we still avoid the hill tops – less chance to get noticed by whoever had fired this shot..."

Abruptly Ryan whirled around, the revolver in his hand ready to shot. Helen and her spear were just moments behind him, too.

"Don't shoot!" the stealthy – well, not so stealthy – figure yelled from the top of the nearby hill, while waving his or her firearm which clearly was not a _revolver_. "I'm with the US government! We're compatriots!"

Helen and Ryan just lowered their weapons and looked at each other. "We should've started moving as soon as we heard the shot," Helen muttered crossly. "Now things are getting really complicated..."

_TBC_


	7. Chapter 7

**Jenny Wren (part 2)**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Pleistocene, 30,000 yrs ago

"So," Helen said after a brief pause, when it became obvious that the newcomer was doing his or her best not to look threatening. "Who are you, then?"

"I'm Jenny – please don't laugh – Jenny Wren," the latter said in English but with a foreign accent. "You're not laughing?"

"We heard worse," Ryan said magnanimously. "I'm Ryan, and this is Helen. We are – with the Home Office of Her Majesty's government. These are... our charges, currently affiliated with us."

"Home Office? Her Majesty government?" the stranger looked completely lost.

"We're British," Helen said curtly, deciding to glare at Ryan at some later time: she was not affiliated with any organization, thank you very much. "I'm guessing that you're not?"

"No," Jenny looked embarrassed. "I'm actually from US." She looked unsure if she wanted to add more or not.

"So how did you get here?" Ryan broke in.

"Through a glowing hole," Jenny confessed. "I was buying... I was buying a firearm, see?" she pointed to her own weapon. "And there was this glowing hole in the air, and something came through, and I went the other way, and ended up here."

"Um, what came through?" Ryan asked, memories of gorgonopsids from the past and bat-like predators from the future, fresh in his mind. "A meat-eating dinosaur?"

"Actually? No," Jenny admitted slightly sheepishly. "Them!" she thrust her arm in the direction of a nearby (but not very much so) hill.

"Hmm." Helen took her binoculars and looked in that direction. "Well, fancy that! Ryan, want to look?"

"Sure," Ryan said flatly, expecting to see cave bears or lions. Instead, what he saw was a herd of cattle, very big cattle, but cattle nonetheless. "That's livestock!"

It was then he became aware that the teenagers were expectantly staring at him. "Here," he gave them the binoculars. "Don't fight or else!"

Sadly teenagers being teenagers they ignored him, language barrier notwithstanding. "Ryan," Helen shook her head. "Our friend here had just a run-in with the aurochs, and you just handed our binoculars to a pair of squabbling teens."

"Hey, you said 'our binoculars'!" Ryan said cheerfully. "Guess I'm growing on you!"

"I can also hit you," Helen said flatly. "In fact, I will hit you, if you don't remember that we are stuck with a pair of teenagers that I care little about, we're stuck in Ice Age Europe and if we don't find food or shelter we'll have problems, and there's Jenny as well." She turned to the other woman. "You didn't see any cave or something around here, did you?"

"Actually yes, yes I did," Jenny said carefully. "But there are people already there – cave people – so I decided to go the other way: they looked rather nasty, I confess."

"Good thinking," Helen nodded. "Let's not mess with the natives. The other way is this way, though?"

"Yes, yes it is," Jenny nodded. "So, shall we go the other way?"

It was then that Ryan became aware of the teenagers frantically trying to attract their attention towards the now-moving aurochs herd.

"Ladies!" he shouted after taking a look through the binoculars himself. "These aurochs are moving in our direction, and they're gaining speed-"

Once more, it seemed Ryan had forgotten about Helen's experience and her reflexes, as she grabbed the teens and began to run away, dragging them by the collars, Jenny and Ryan following suit.

"Where are we running to?" the other woman huffed, as the aurochs herd, though still a great distance away, was coming towards them at a great speed. "The hills-"

And then a mountainside, steep but not unclimbable, rose before them. Helen, without breaking stride, began to climb up it...until she realized that the others were falling behind her. Grumbling under her breath, she whirled around and began to help the teenagers, while Ryan and Jenny were helping each other.

"Your girlfriend is an interesting woman," Jenny huffed as she helped Ryan maintaining his balance.

"You have no idea," Ryan almost grinned – and lost his balance, beginning to fall backwards, just as the aurochs herd began to thunder right past (or rather below) them.

"Aargh!" Ryan's final descent was cut short by Jenny, who was grabbed on by the teenagers, who was grabbed on by Helen. Together, they were able to halt Ryan's descent long enough to sprawl down on the slope without sliding down any further.

"Hey, look, the cattle herd has gone by," Ryan said idly from his inverted position on the slope.

"Yes," Helen admitted placidly, "and now we can see why they ran: Jenny, your cave people have arrived..."

_TBC_


	8. Chapter 8

**Jenny Wren (part 3)**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Pleistocene, 30,000 years ago

The cave people (or Cro-Magnons, as Helen has called them) weren't armed with anything else than crude wooden spears and javelins, and even cruder stone axes, but they were the possible direct ancestors of the time travelling misfits, so killing them was risky regarding potential changes to the future (or the present?).

Admittedly, Helen did not seem to be too reluctant to be doing something like this, namely a chronological experiment akin to something out of American sci-fi literature... just not now. Instead, she walked quietly alongside everyone else to the Cro-Magnons cave, even as the shorter chronological natives pocked and prodded them with their javelins and spears without any resistance.

And then things got really weird.

"Hello, Jenny."

"You know, I thought that the cave people were too organized for someone living in the ice age," Danny said wryly, "but _this _isn't something that I expected to find."

'This' was a dinosaur, a bipedal, big-jawed, clearly carnivorous dinosaur with strange blue eyes, and it was it, or rather – he, who approached Jenny Wren and told her "hello".

"Now, I know this race, I remember it from Nick's notes," Helen said, her poker face in place. "It's an abelisaur - rugops? No, majungasaurus? Masiakasaurus?"

"I am Carnotaurus," the dinosaur said mildly, but with a hint of danger beneath. "I have no quarrels with you, people who speak strange English, only with Jenny: she is the last of her clan that tried to attack me and my people-"

"Your people? You dominate them with your mental powers!" Jenny shot back.

"Of course, he does," Helen said placidly. "This dinosaur had encounter with a certain troublesome type of futuristic technology and has been mentally influenced in a way that urges him – or her - to dominate humanity." She paused and added. "And unless we have a stegosaurus on a standby, we're in trouble."

"I don't know what a stegosaurus is, but yes, you're in trouble," the carnotaurus agreed, looking mostly at the American woman. "I do not like appreciate the efforts of being dethroned, especially by arrogant Americans."

"Oh?" Helen turned to look at the other woman.

"I told you," Jenny Wren said firmly, "this being, he is treating these lands as his private fiefdom-"

"Yes, yes," Helen said crossly. "Danny?"

"What?" Danny replied, sounding not too happy himself.

Instead of replying, Helen pulled out a medium-sized glassy container out of her backpack and uncorked it. Immediately, a rather specific smell began to wafe through the cavern.

"That smell," Carnotaurus roared, "give me its' source!"

"Here!" Helen thrust the entire container into Carnotaurus' gaping jaws. The dinosaur clamped down on it and froze long enough for Danny to discharge the revolver into his chest. The dinosaur may have had mysterious mental powers and could talk, but an entire Webley magazine discharged into him unexpectedly was more than he could handle, and so the dinosaur collapsed.

And so did his minions: they fell on the floor, clutching their heads in clear agony, as Danny, Helen and others just whirled and fled as fast as they could.

/

"Well, that was strange, even by our standards," Danny muttered as the still party of five rested some distance away from the cavern of Carnotaurus and his minions. "You come across such situations often?" he turned to Helen.

"It's tricky," Helen shrugged, before being interrupted by Jenny:

"Um, what was that smell?"

"Smell of meat," Helen muttered, "with some spices added as an experiment. I expected to knock the dinosaur out, not _that_. Still, it worked out for the best, didn't it?"

"Yes. Hey, look, a time anomaly!" Danny said, abruptly changing the subject – not that he had to, as something else stepped through the hole a time, a creature similar to the future predators encountered in the present, but easily three meters long and with hide the colour of hoarfrost. Everyone – even those who had never encountered future predators, even the regular ones – froze, as the new, bigger future predator just stood there, 'looking' around with its' sonar.

Fortunately, though, everyone was still standing motionlessly, and so the future predator decided to ignore them. With leaps and bounds it was gone.

"Well!" Danny spat out. "Looks like we're stuck here for a while yet, yes Helen?"

Helen just nodded grimly.

_TBC_


	9. Chapter 9

**A bigger predator **

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Pleistocene, 30,000 years ago

"...Okay," spoke Ryan when it became obvious that the new, bigger version of the future predator was not going to return to the time anomaly from which it came (fortunately, since it had closed by now), "what was that?"

"A different version of the future predator that you have encountered already," Helen rolled her eyes, the "idiot" at the end of the sentence remaining unspoken.

"Sorry," Ryan quickly backpedalled. "I meant, how is it different from the smaller grey ones, aside from the obvious?"

"It's bigger, its hide is tougher," Helen grew more thoughtful. "Also, it's relatively slower – an ambush hunter like the tiger, not a pursuer, like the wolf."

"Hmm," Ryan began, but Jenny Wren chose this moment to interrupt the discussion:

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You have encountered those things already? What are they, then, and what did you mean by 'smaller grey ones'?"

"Um," Ryan nodded towards Helen. "She can explain this much better..."

"Thanks," Helen replied wryly, before turning towards the other woman. "They're artificially bred mammals from the middle of the 22nd century onwards. As humanity collapsed both as a civilization and a species, they escaped and via the time anomalies they have spread throughout the time stream. The smaller grey version is the most common one, but occasionally other variations – such as this one – are encountered as well."

"Aha," Jenny nodded sagely, "how are we going to stop it?"

"Don't look at me," Helen shrugged. "It's a single individual – it'll die of natural causes anyways, there's no need to run around looking heroic."

"What? It is a future predator! Do you know what it is capable of?"

"Yes," Helen said flatly. "I do. That said, this is the Ice Age – many mammals, especially the mega fauna, are dying out as it is. What's with the rush?"

The others just gave her a look.

"Fine. Where are the binoculars? We need to find it, first."

As it happened, it were the Greek children – whose names Ryan and Helen hadn't still figured out – who had the binoculars at the moment and who were watching something or someone through them.

"Well, would you look at that!" Ryan exclaimed brightly, "there's our boy right there, stalking a herd of... are those antelopes?"

"Yup," nodded Jenny, as she took over the binoculars before Helen could. "Antelopes. Did not know there were any in the Ice Age north, but there you are, antelopes, albeit ones with weird noses... Do you know what they're called?" she asked Helen.

"No," Helen said, slightly crossly, "but, Ryan, since we do have some sort of a long-range rifle, can we cause a stampede?"

"A stampede? Hmm," Ryan switched his point of view to the new version of the future predator as it busily stalked the antelope herd. "Let me see the rifle."

"Here," Jenny thrust her weapon to Ryan, albeit with a slight note of reluctance.

"Mossberg 500?" Ryan exclaimed in surprise. "Seriously? What are you, a Green Beret or something?"

"No," Jenny shook her head, blushing vividly. "Am not. I just... my father... has connections..."

"Ahem," Helen interrupted the other two. "Ryan, can you cause a stampede here? Neither the herd nor the future predator are going to wait for long..."

"Yes, I can," Ryan said firmly, "albeit from a closer range."

"Fine, I'm coming with you, to insure that we'll have a chance if the future predator decides to go for us instead," Helen muttered, as she pulled out her spear and thrust the revolver to Jenny.

"Here," she told the other woman, "keep the binoculars. If the future predator changes its mind, fire a warning shot. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Jenny said with an odd look on her face. "Good luck."

"We'll need it," Ryan said grimly as he and Helen began to move downhill.

Despite his military career, captain Ryan had never been a particularly impulsive man, preferring to think before acting: this may have explained his relatively slow advance on the career ladder. So why now he was moving quickly downhill, armed with a shotgun and assisted by a woman with a self-made spear?

"Why are we moving so quickly?" he asked that aforementioned woman (i.e. Helen Cutter).

"Because if either the predator or the herd moves away we'll miss our chance to stop it here and now," Helen said crossly, "and incidentally, the future predator is about to pounce."

Ryan abruptly stopped, and took a look. Sure enough, the future predator's body was tensing up, and then it leapt.

Instantly, using his training and not his brain, Ryan brought the shotgun (not very familiar, to tell the truth), and fired behind the herd. The antelopes (if they were the antelopes, and not some prehistoric cousins of theirs, extinct in the modern times), already worried by the future predator's presence absolutely lost their nerve from the loud gunshot from behind them, and charged. Therefore, the future predator, as it used its superior weight to bring down one of the antelopes, was – in its turn – brought down and trampled by antelope hooves of the entire herd – and it was a big herd, while the future predator, though larger than the grey-colored version, was still lightly built...

When the antelope herd vanished in the distance and the dust settled, the future predator was already dead, from broken bones and internal bleeding.

"...Let's not do this again," Ryan muttered, as he all but fainted from the abrupt tension release and the relief that it was all over.

"Okay," nodded Helen, as she leaned at her spear so easily, that Ryan suspected that something was amiss.

"You're lying, aren't you?"

"Yup."

It was some time later. It was evening – a polar evening, but still. The impromptu quintet was sitting on a hillside, huddled for warmth around a small and feeble fire, made from some very low quality fuel. "So, this is your life?" Ryan asked Helen as the latter clearly ignored the rather cold wind that blew around the hills. "Over the hills and through the time anomalies?"

"Yup," Helen nodded nonchalantly, as she finished combing her hair (with a small, well-used, bony comb) and turned to the Greek girl. "More or less. Usually, though, when I am in an Ice Age period, I try to find a cave first."

"Interesting," Jenny decided to join in, looking with a certain jealousy as the Greek girl, whose hair was now being combed by Helen. "Any ideas how to get back?"

"Well-"

Helen did not finish. A time anomaly flashed into existence, releasing into the Ice Age a sphere, all mud and bamboo spikes before snapping shut and leaving the sphere to roll down the hill at a safe distance from the impromptu camp.

"Well," Ryan said after a pause, when it also became obvious that the sphere had also left relatively small bloody smear on the hillside, "looks like that we'll be stuck here for a while, instead."

_End of "A bigger predator"_


	10. Chapter 10

**A change of scenery**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Late Pleistocene, 30,000 years ago

As the sphere rolled gently to a stop halfway down the hill, Ryan, Helen and the others gathered around it. "So, any ideas?" Ryan asked his the ex-anthropologist.

"Not really," Helen confessed. "I mean, I know that this here wood is softwood, not hardwood, but that doesn't mean anything – conifers started to grow about a hundred million years before the dinosaurs appeared, and they outlived the humanity as well, so it's anyone's guess from what time this piece of info has come."

"This piece of info?" Jenny asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Yes," Helen looked back at the American woman. "What did you expect – something witty, maybe?"

"No...maybe," Jenny admitted as she squatted down to take a closer look herself. "Would you look at that – it is blunt!"

"Hah?"

"The wood is blunt! Someone did a really crappy job at putting it all together, you know? They cut up the wooden parts, but they didn't sharpen them, for some reason, and the mud is pretty loose, too."

"So, either someone didn't put a lot of effort into it, or just couldn't – they could've just had really crappy tools," Ryan concluded. "Yes, that doesn't give us much, I agree."

"Mmm," Helen nodded, as she took a sniff. "That said, this does strike a chord. I think I remember this sort of wood – it's redwood!"

"Redwood? You mean the mighty trees of America?" Jenny said in a very strange tone of voice. "Think that that time anomaly can lead me back to home?"

"Yes, it's as good an idea as any," Helen nodded.

"Then we must stay here and wait for it to re-open!"

"Yes, but there is another thing," Helen said, grimly, as she pulled out several dry grass stalks. "I've been here before, and I know _these_ signs. The Ice Age autumn is here."

There was a pause as Jenny and Ryan looked around. "Helen, this is the Ice Age. There is no autumn... is here?"

"No, but within a month this place will be unbearably cold, even for the woolly mammoths," Helen shrugged. "Jenny, I'm sorry, but I can give you a week at most – then we'll have to start to move southwards, looking for a secure shelter as well. Otherwise we will not survive. Period."

Jenny exhaled, hard. "That's fair," she said after a pause. "I don't like it-" There was a tug on her sleeve. "What now?"

Wordlessly, the Greek teens pointed upwards, up the slope of a hill, where an Arctic fox was busy staring at them, its fur still brownish, rather than wintry white.

"Well, hello there fur collar!" Ryan said brightly, as he began to move up the hill, followed by Jenny with her Mossberg.

Helen frowned: something was off. "Stay down there," she told the teens as she began to make a flanking maneuver – but it was too late. With a blur of air the Arctic fox vanished, as the time anomaly came back.

"Home!" Jenny joyfully cried and jumped through the time anomaly, as it closed once more, behind her.

"Er, now what?" Ryan asked carefully, as Helen just placidly began to walk around their camp. "I mean, she didn't even say good-bye."

"Well," Helen replied calmly, as she gave the teens, which finally came up the hill. "We wait. I think that I recognize this type of the time anomaly – it might re-open once again, and this time we should be ready."

"OK," Ryan gave in. "You're the time anomaly expert," and they began to pack.

/

Late Cretaceous, 75 MYA

"Home!" Jenny joyfully cried as she landed... on a rather steep and jumbled cliff side. "Whoa!"

Jenny was standing... in a forest of mighty redwoods, that was for sure, but there was not anything particularly American about them; she could have just as easily been in Canada or even in Europe, perhaps. The land around her was pristine and wild, composed of just redwoods and similar trees, many of which were shedding their needle-like foliage as well.

Jenny gulped and said quietly. "No. This is home, this has to be, that ball was man-made, there have to be people here..." She began to move down the slope when the Arctic fox that came here earlier ran into her, actually knocking Jenny down.

"Whoa there boy!" Jenny gasped, as she grabbed the panting animal around the waste – it did not resist but just stood there, panting. "What got _you_ so worked up?"

It was then that the dinosaurs appeared, and they were raptors, seemingly straight from the movie, if the movie raptors were covered in feathers and were the size of a large game bird. Their long jaws, however, were studded with sufficiently sharp teeth, and the look in their large eyes was anything but friendly.

"Stay back!" Jenny yelled, as she fired the Mossberg, hoping that it had enough rounds in it yet. At any case, it had at least one, as it blasted one of the dinosaurs into bloody pieces, causing the others to scatter... just not very far, only to the nearest trees, which were not growing too far away from Jenny.

The Arctic fox did not do even that: it just stood there and peed onto Jenny, but that was all.

"This is very bad," Jenny muttered, as she got back onto her feet and did a quick mental inventory of her possessions: a Mossberg 500 with just 2-3 rounds left, and a rather frightened, almost comatose, Arctic fox that could be thrown to the dinosaurs, but to no great effect...

She moved on, and in few more minutes found herself in a small clearing among the trees (though they did grow close to each other, they just did not appear to form a forest, probably due to a lack of undergrowth that Jenny encountered back home in New England), where it smelled of the Arctic fox – apparently the smaller mammal had reached this place before it encountered the dinosaurs...

"Oh dear," Jenny gulped as something clanked underfoot. She looked down. Mostly what she saw down below were teeth, some of which probably belonged to the raptors that were carefully encircling her, but others were just too big and too thick to even fit into their long and thin jaws. Mixed in with them, however, were bits and slivers of bones and armor, and a relatively long lump of rust that still had a vaguely knife-like shape...

Something fell behind her with a heavy thump. Jenny whirled around to see another one of the raptor-like dinosaurs fall behind her, pierced right through by one of Helen's oversized crossbow bolts.

"Guys! Get back!" Jenny yelled, as she began to run up the hill (still carrying the fox and the Mossberg). "This isn't America! This is the past!"

"Get down!" Ryan yelled back, and Jenny instinctively dropped, as Helen fired her second bolt...right into the neck of a much-bigger meat-eater that looked like a T-Rex, but was smaller in size. Well, just the right size to decapitate somebody human with a bite, actually, but that was beside the point – the dinosaur staggered several more steps past Jenny via the impetus of energy and fell, quite dead, or at least dying.

And the time anomaly vanished once again behind Helen, Ryan, and the others.

"You shouldn't have followed me," Jenny whispered weakly, looking at the toppled predator from the corner of her eye.

Helen sighed and pulled out a handkerchief from out of her backpack. "If you want, I think that we can go back to the Ice Age," she said simply. "Would that be better?"

Jenny just stared, her mouth agape.

_TBC_


	11. Chapter 11

**A change of scenery II**

_Disclaimer: captain Ryan and Helen belong to Impossible Pictures™. Everyone else is mine._

Late Cretaceous, 75 MYA

To Jenny's surprise, neither Helen nor Ryan appeared to be particularly disturbed to be trapped in the era of the dinosaurs (the teens' behavior could be explained by their lack of the English language): Helen calmly removed her bolt from the smaller meat-eater, while Ryan eyed the knife-shaped lump of rust with some interest.

"Fascinating," he said after several minutes of silence. "This is either Bowie or some other sort of a combat knife – probably yours," he turned to Jenny. "Ours are of a somewhat different shape...though it is hard to say, considering that it has almost fallen apart from the rust..."

"People, are you insane? We're trapped in a world of dinosaurs!" Jenny began again.

"We know!" Helen shot crossly back. "Ryan, what are they doing to the fox?"

"Looks like they're playing with it," Ryan evenly replied.

"Ah. Anyways, Jenny, look." Helen pointed back up the mountain slope, where the time anomaly appeared once again. "This sort of time anomaly tends to steadily blink on and off for a very long period of time, so if you want to go back to the Ice Age, we can do that. You brought us here, it is your call."

"I just wanted to go home," Jenny said weakly.

"And so you did. We _are_ back in the States, just, you know, 75 or 70 MYA in the past. Now what?"

"Oh." Jenny thought about it. "Can we find another time anomaly back in the Ice Age? The mammoths are closer to us than the dinosaurs, right?"

"Of course," Helen nodded placidly. "So, we're leaving?"

"Yes."

And so they did.

/

Pleistocene, 30,000 years ago

The first thing that hit Jenny (and the others) that the air temperature did not differ all that much between the late Cretaceous (that is what Helen called that time period) and the Ice Age. "But of course," Helen shrugged, when Ryan pointed this out. "The Ice Ages came and went; this isn't the first or the last one of them. Shall we go south?"

"And how do we know where the south _is_?" Ryan said rather snappily. "You don't have a compass, do you?"

Helen just pointed upwards, where a flock of either geese or large ducks was flying – obviously away from the North Pole and the north in general.

"Oh, okay then."

And the mismatched quintet followed the flock of geese.

Several minutes later, when the time anomaly that led to the Cretaceous North America opened up once again, several more people came out of it. They looked at the ground, searching for the tracks of the quintet, and eventually they found them.

And then they followed them.

/

Several days have passed. The weather was still sunny, but it was growing steadily colder: the sun still emitted plenty of light, but less and less heat. It was a good thing that Jenny had fired her Mossberg only once back in the Cretaceous – Ryan had spent the rest of the ammunition on a herd of the local antelopes in order to acquire their meat, and more importantly, their hides and fur.

Admittedly, Helen again had to do most of the tailoring (and not just because she had the initial supply of needles and thread), but this time, the teenage girl (whose name was apparently Hella or Hellas), tentatively joined in, while the others dismembered the antelopes, smoked or roasted their meat, removed the tendons (to be used as extra threads later), and generally made themselves useful.

All in all, though Jenny's Mossberg was rendered useless (at least until they acquired new ammo for it), the quintet did acquire four antelopes of various ages, and that proved more than enough supply for all of them, even the Arctic fox (which decided to stay with them after the brief trip to the Cretaceous), at least for a while.

It also cost them about 3 days to be done with the antelopes as well, and that considering that only two of them were fully grown, and another one was really just a calf: by the time they were done everyone had a new respect for their ancestors' way of life – and, apparently, Helen.

"Not really, no," the time traveller confessed. "Only when I can't help it... which happened more often in the past than it does now."

And then they restarted their travels.

/

Several days later (without the modern watches or calendars time was treated rather differently here) the quintet began to witness other signs of them moving in the right direction – i.e. south: other people, native to this time period. Admittedly, they were a bit shorter in height than the adults in the quintet were, (and maybe that is why they kept their distance), but otherwise they could have easily fit in on the streets of London _or_ NYC if they were dressed properly. The same went for the Bronze Age's Greece too, as a matter of fact.

"Naturally," Helen just shrugged. "They are modern people, anatomically speaking. The Neanderthals – they are quite different."

"How so?" Jenny enquired.

"You have to see for yourself to understand it properly," Helen confessed.

The small group (and the others, like it) was travelling southwards for over a week now. Other creatures, such as the woolly mammoths, the European bison, the giant elk and the more modern-looking reindeer were walking alongside them. The predators – packs of massive Ice Age wolves – also made an appearance, but fortunately they did not come over for a closer meeting: a pack of 5 to 8 massive beasts was more than a fair match for a group of people armed only with a handful of spears, a crossbow and a revolver...

There were smaller predators as well – the Arctic foxes. The one that became adopted by the group showed no interest in rejoining them, apparently quite happy being domesticated, and after an unfortunate encounter with a snow owl, it stuck even closer to them: the memory of the small carnivorous dinosaurs (quite similar to the big owl, actually) had made a bigger impression on its spirit than it was initially thought...

About six days or so passed and the small group was about to break camp for evening, when Jenny (who was given the binoculars after her Mossberg became basically an unwieldy club and nothing more) saw something in the distance and exclaimed "What's that?!"

"That," Ryan said thoughtfully, after adjusting the binoculars, "is a real forest, not the stunted trees that grow around here. And _that_, that looming in the distance, are real mountains."

"Real mountains," Jenny said rather wistfully. "My boyfriend has always wanted to go camping into the Adirondacks, but somehow we never had time... wonder how is he doing now? Has he found anyone new or not?"

Before Ryan could reply, Phrix (that was probably the name of the Greek boy teen; either that, or Phrixus) began to play on his music instrument. As a matter of fact, there were several of them now in the group: the basic flute (played by Helen or Jenny when one of them felt like it), some sort of a more bizarre V-shaped piece played by the Greek boy, and the basic pan pipes, played by his sister. Sometimes, when the evenings felt particularly lonely (or cold), they all would play together, creating some sort of a crude wind instrument concert at the campfire.

This time, however, it proved to be a different sort of evening, as the Arctic fox suddenly took a deep sniff at the strong breeze (the weather was proving to be somewhat windy tonight), and began to growl.

"Helen," Ryan said rather lazily, "the fox doesn't like our new neighbours."

By now this was something of a routine. An Arctic fox may not be a close relative of the domestic dog (or the gray wolf), but this one was certainly doing its best to be one. That said, Helen usually responded placidly enough to the animal's actions, claiming that if they kept their distance from the other camps they would not be bothered either – and was right. But now...

"Ryan, you're keeping the first watch, right?" Helen asked instead, as she reached into her backpack and pulled out a pair of what Ryan was certain was a mismatched pair of combat knives in sheathes.

"Yes," he said instead.

"Good. Take the spear as well. If you think that you see something or someone strange coming upon us, jab me for backup, would you?" Helen continued in a matter of fact tone as she put the knives onto her belt in a well-practiced motion that was somehow both worrisome and reasserting.

"Will do," Ryan only nodded and settled onto the watch.

/

It should be noted at this time that as the group – and the other people – were travelling south, the days were growing shorter and the nights longer very fast, much more so, than in the modern times, 30 000 years onwards. Conversely, though, the days were still relatively long and the nights relatively short, so even with each of the adults keeping an eye out at night, everyone still had some time for sleeping...

Not this time. The Arctic fox refused to calm down, it kept pacing around on its leash and growling rather angrily as night went on – growling loudly enough to keep the others awake despite the relatively exhausting day march. Consequently, when a group of people burst out of the darkness, swinging relatively thick, but short wooden spears, everyone was ready for the attack.

Ryan's attacker (and later, after the fight was over, Ryan would realize that this was the first Neanderthal that he had ever met), swung his spear, and though Ryan still had the revolver with the last full set of rounds, he countered the attacker with his own spear – and was knocked prone as a result.

For a brief moment, as the Neanderthal raised his spear to stab the ex-soldier Ryan had a flashback of the future predator, preparing to deliver a final bite – and he instinctively reacted, by shifting the grip on his own spear, and swinging it upwards.

Ryan got lucky – twice. First, by the fact that Helen had done a much more thorough job on sharpening the tip of her spear than an average Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon would, and second by his shifting grip on it: the sharp edge of his weapon caught the Neanderthal man across the torso, creating a shallow, but long wound upon it.

Ryan's attacker staggered back, trying to acquire more space to manoeuvre or to flee, but Ryan's spear was also longer, and he struck with a stabbing strike – right in the wound. The Neanderthal dropped and did not rise.

Ryan looked around. Jenny was having worse luck against her opponent: she also had her own spear, but Ryan also had had military experience – both in killing other people in general and in killing them with cold weapons, rather than firearms. Consequently, Jenny was mostly dodging the stabbing strikes of her opponent, and only her speed kept her from being seriously hurt; that, and the fact that the Neanderthal would rather have her alive.

Something snapped in Ryan, and he, shifting his grip on the spear again, struck Jenny's opponent directly... through the ribs. His weapon sunk deep and the second Neanderthal collapsed, followed by Jenny.

Giving her a quick look, Ryan realized that Jenny was alive, but in a mental shock instead. Even quicker, he looked around for other opponents – he remembered two or three more at the beginning of the melee – and so them already dead, lying at the feet of Helen, and two bloody, mismatched knives in her hands, a feral grin on her face.

Ryan opened his mouth to comment, but then from the darkness came the sounds of gunfire and two more people appeared on the scene, both armed with revolvers of some sort.

"Howdy, partners," the older gunslinger said brightly. "You won't mind two solders of the Confederacy helping themselves to some of your supplies, do you?"

"You're robbing us?" Jenny spoke in an incredulous tone of voice before Ryan did. "Who are you? Jesse James and Billy the Kid?"

"No, I'm J.W. and this is Joey," the same gunslinger replied. "You're Yankees?"

"British, actually," Helen said, twirling her knives in a very professional way that made the gunslingers nervous (though they did appear to have their own knives). "Anyways-"

"Anyways," J.W. replied as he fired a shot into the air – and the northern lights came on.

Now, Ryan had known about the existence of the northern lights – in theory. In practice he never expected them to be anything like this – so great, so wild, and so wonderful. The giant-sized kaleidoscope of light and shapes charmed the soul and paralyzed the will...though in Ryan's case he kept enough presence of mind to quickly disarm the "two soldiers of Confederacy" and to tie them up.

The northern lights themselves lasted for about an hour and vanished, revealing a lighter sky that was heralding the approaching dawn.

"So," J.W. said slowly. "What was that?"

"The northern lights," Ryan replied, looking askance at Helen. But the ex-anthropologist opted to stay in the background instead, resheathing her blades.

"So, we're not in America?" the younger soldier – Joey – asked.

"This has nothing to do with America, but yes, we are in Europe," Jenny confessed. "Anyways, we're moving south for the winter-"

"Winter? So soon? I thought that the autumn was just beginning," J.W. said slowly. "I mean yes, there were giant lizards and birds and dragons, but the leaves were just turning yellow."

"That's because _that_ were the States," Helen said somewhat smugly. "Here the snow is already starting to appear, see?" she pointed to the ground. And indeed, the ground was covered in a light cover of snow that did not appear to be in any hurry to melt, however. "How did you end up there, though?"

"We and the others were investigating a barn in Cricket Creek," J.W. said slowly. "It was supposed to be haunted, but all we found was a big glowing light – kind of like the will-o'-wisp, but it just floated there, and when we charged it, we ended up in a strange land – you sure that it was the States?"

"Maybe Canada – I don't know for sure," Helen confessed.

"Well, Canada – that's different. Anyways, when we ended up there it was summer, for the trees and whatnot was still green. The will-o'-wisp, or whatever it was, vanished behind us, so we were stuck. For two or three months, until the plants began to turn yellow, we just wandered there, looking for a way home. And then we saw you, and another will-o'-wisp, and followed. It took us a while to catch up to you, but, well, here we are."

"We found a very rusty knife and some bones, maybe human," Ryan said slowly. "Was it one of yours?"

"Yes – Terry," J.W. nodded. "Obnoxious bastard, even for a sergeant. Thank God that he's gone, at least." He paused. "So, now what?"

"We're going south to escape the winter. You can come with us, if you want to," Jenny said softly before the others could.

"Much obliged," J.W. replied as Joey eagerly nodded along. "This place may be much colder than Canada, but there are no wingless dragons around here, so yes, this is better."

Everyone else looked at Helen at that moment, whom just sighed and pulled out some of the raw materials left from the antelope from her backpack. "That's our cue to stay here for the day!" Ryan said brightly.

Helen just glared.

_TBC_


	12. Chapter 12

**A change of scenery III**

_Disclaimer: captain Ryan and Helen belong to Impossible Pictures™. Everyone else is mine._

Pleistocene, 30,000 years ago

Contrary to Ryan's prediction, by mid afternoon they were moving again. In part that was because Helen already had partially treated the remaining hides and they only had to be put together again. With Hellas' and more tentatively Jenny's assistance, she was able to create two more hooded coats more quickly than before, but that was that for this part of the team's supplies.

"We need to find and kill some more furry animals and fast," Jenny muttered to Ryan as the group continued to move. "Otherwise this is going to become very bad even quicker!"

Ryan nodded. Though he had largely retired from active military duty about a year or so before joining Lester and Brown's team of time anomaly hunters, he still kept plenty of field experience to feel that something bad was coming from behind them – something bad enough to be felt by everyone in the group, even the Arctic fox.

The Arctic fox, in particular, was especially worried, huddling around Phrix and Hellas and occasionally whining, clearly preferring to stay and hide rather than to flee. But perhaps it was being affected by the change in scenery: as the day went on the landscape changed from pure tundra into a more mixed landscape, where the still-Arctic scrubland was mixed with copses of real trees, not the stunted versions that the team had encountered earlier. In fact, as time went on and evening rolled in, they found themselves in actually a rather dense piece of woodland, and the mountains on the horizon appeared to loom ever closer.

"Optical illusion," Ryan shook his head. "They're still far enough away from us for a few days walk."

"You know that you sound like Yoda?" Jenny said after some thought. "I didn't know that you watched Star Wars™ in England."

"Sorry – I'm just on edge," Ryan confessed. "Something bad is coming, and it's going to be big."

"Yes – a snow storm," Helen nodded. "And that is why we're going to stop early – we need to make a shelter."

Abruptly, everyone stopped and stared at her. "I know that you have a tent, but I'm guessing that we're going to make something else," Jenny spoke.

"Yup," Helen nodded, as she pulled out her entrenching tool. "It's complicated, so listen up!"

/

Actually, Helen's plan was not that complicated, but it was physically hard to execute. A part of raw material needed for it, a spruce tree, was found quickly enough, and using their Bowie knives, J.W. and Joey began to quickly hack of the branches, as Phrix and Hellas gathered and brought them to the others.

For their parts, Helen, Ryan and Jenny – after finding a pair of saplings that grew close enough together, they quickly selected a crosspiece and after cutting it down the size with the e-tool, they began to actually build the actual shelter, resting the branches against the crosspiece, using the other live trees to shelter them for at least some of the wind.

The wind, incidentally, was growing stronger, and when the others returned, bearing this time not branches, but greener boughs as a final cover, the trio _was_ relieved to see them.

"You know, that is actually comfortable," Joey pointed out as the team got inside. "Had a lot of practice doing it?"

"Maybe," Helen shrugged, as she and Ryan stared a fire near the entrance. "Hopefully, the trees _and_ the shelter are solid enough to protect us from the worst of the storm."

That was glumly acknowledged all around. Even though technically it was not yet nightfall, it was already very dark and the snowfall was growing thicker by the minute. The Arctic fox, its fur already more white than brown, was huddled at the feet of Hellas, who was muttering something sotto voce to her brother, hopefully not about how probable the chances of being buried alive here were.

As the snow fell, the world grew steadily quieter, until Ryan just could not take it anymore. "So, Jenny," he began, when the American woman turned to Helen and pulled out her panpipes with a raised eyebrow.

"Ah," Helen said brightly, before turning to Phrix and conveying something to him in the pidgin Greek. Well, actually it was to bring out his V-shaped music piece, even as Helen produced her own flute – and then they started to jam with Jenny.

"Say, this looks like fun!" Joey, the younger gunslinger, said brightly, as he pulled out an old-fashioned lip harmonica from his own skinny bag. "Mind if I join in?"

Helen just shrugged and Joey joined in with the other three. Soon the music from the mismatched harmonica had joined in with the others, creating a cacophony that seemed to keep everyone awake all night, or at least that is what Ryan thought, for suddenly the grey light of dawn was breaking through the gaps in their shelter – the storm was over.

/

"Whoa!" was all that Jenny said as the group emerged from their shelter and looked around. "The Ice Age? How about the Snow Age instead!"

"A bit corny, but fair enough," Helen wrinkled her nose as she joined the other woman. "We were lucky to find natural shelter to begin with – if this caught us in the open, we'd be dead."

"You know, me and Joey did hear wolves as we followed you. If there are any around, and they survived, they'll probably be starving, and we've got youngsters _and _a dog."

"It's a fox-"

"It isn't red, so it's not a fox."

"J.W., you know that some foxes are grey, not red-"

"And they also climb trees and eat cherries! They aren't real foxes either!"

"Are too!"

"Are not!"

"Are too!"

The others just rolled their eyes – apparently this was an old argument – and followed Helen as they left their temporary shelter behind. Or tried to. Standing before them was a small group of people native to this time and place, and they looked much worse for wear than Ryan, Helen and the others. The spokesperson, a man of indeterminable age with scraggly grey hair, moustache and beard began to mutter and gesticulate something inarticulate.

"Oh really?" Helen looked interested and almost happy for the first time, as she moved forwards and began to communicate with him in a vaguely similar inarticulate language, accompanied by more gestures. This went on for two or three minutes and then Helen's interlocutor nodded and went on.

The others stared at the anthropologist. "OK, first of all, he offered us an alliance and a share of their cave, and secondly yes, I've been in the Ice Age before. I am an anthropologist, and as soon as I figured how to work the time anomalies I went out and saw it all."

"Oh." Ryan and Jenny figured it out first. "Really? Then why didn't you work with Lester-"

"Because I can't stand Nick. While I was away from him, I forgot about that fact in our lives, but as soon as I got back, he reminded me, loud and clear," Helen glared. It was her first at glare at Ryan for a while now, and he got a vivid reminder just how scary the ex-anthropologist could be.

"Okay then," was what he said instead. "Let's just go after them, already."

And they went.

/

The rest of the journey to the mountains took place in the thickening woodland. At first it was relatively sparse, especially after the snowstorm broke down many branches of the local trees, but as time went on, the trees grew taller, their branches spread further, and eventually, instead of tundra, the odd group found themselves in a boreal forest.

The animals... they were a different story. The first animals they encountered were a brace of quails, which were trapped by the too-heavy snow after the snowfall and perished, crushed by the snow. They were sniffed out by the Arctic fox (which was clearly used to that sort of thing) and recovered by everyone. The birds were relatively plump, but also relatively small, and even after they were roasted, they still had a rather peculiar taste.

"I heard that some species of those birds feed on conifer needles in winter," Ryan grimaced as he ate his share hot. "This probably explains the taste." Everyone silently agreed as they continued to chew.

This meal may have tasted oddly, but it was fresh, and hot, and it kept them going for the next day or so, until they discovered several reindeer that also had perished in the snowfall – or not. Possibly disease or old age have been the culprits instead, as those animals were heavily emancipated, their bones barely covered by any flesh. Still, it was meat, and the people were hungry, and also fur and skin, which meant more material for new clothing, and so by the time they were done, little to nothing remained of most of the deer.

And the last encounter came three days later, when they finally arrived at the mountain camp of their new allies. "You know, this looks like the Alps," Ryan muttered to Helen as everyone stared in awe at the tall ridge that appeared to shadow the sun like a row of some jagged talons. "Always wanted to see them when I was young."

"So now you're 30 000 years before you were born – guess now you're younger," Helen said brightly. "That was a joke, by the way."

"Ah. I figured that you would find something like that funny."

And then the bear appeared. It emerged out of a cave, for there were several of them in the mountainside, rose onto its hind legs and snarled. And even though this was the smaller and more modern brown bear, rather than a real cave bear, it was still a very large animal, capable of doing a lot of damage.

Very slowly Ryan reached for the revolver.

"Don't!" J.W. hissed from behind him. "Joey and I had encounters with bears before – not even a Colt can really stop it fast enough, you need a Winchester or a similar rifle for that!"

Ryan and the others did not have a Winchester; they did have a more modern Mossberg, but it was out of bullets, so he did nothing, but just stood there – and then the Cro-Magnons group fell to their knees and began to pray, or at least to do something very similar to praying, to the bear. After a quick look, the others joined them, and this went on for four or five minutes until the bear abruptly dropped on all fours, turned around and went back to the cave.

The leader of the Cro-Magnons got back up and began to harangue the others about something or other in his mumbled language for about the same period of time. "What is going on here?" Ryan whispered to Helen sotto voce.

"I think that this bear is their guardian spirit animal," Helen whispered back.

"There was nothing particularly spiritual about this bear – it was very real," Ryan was not convinced.

"For them it's both."

"Ah."

Fortunately, the Cro-Magnon leader did not understand them, so eventually he stopped, and they and the others went into the cave.

"So, this is where we will be staying for the winter?" Jenny asked the others as they got back onto their feet. "In a cave, alongside a bear?"

"Yes," Helen replied, deadpan.

"Ah." Jenny paused. "Still better than the dinosaurs." And she (and the others) followed Helen and Ryan into the mountainside.

End


	13. Chapter 13

**The road not taken**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Pleistocene, 30,000 years ago

After weeks and months of cloud-covered sky and heavy snow, spring had finally reached the mountainside. (Whether or not those mountains were the actual Swiss Alps remained unknown and undetermined.) Ryan, upon seeing the new green grass and the Ice Age megafauna grazing on it, almost wept – it was so touching! Fortunately, though, he was able to keep his emotions under control and this incident remained unnoticed.

In part that was because the megafauna in question were several woolly rhinoceroses, which have shed their long winter coats and just were not as woolly as they were earlier, and for a good reason: the weather was growing warmer and nicer by the day, and soon the old winter wear was becoming decisively hot and uncomfortable to walk around in – new clothes had to be made... but considering that their ingredients had to be captured and killed first, that just was easier said than done.

"I don't suppose that we can grow linen around here, do you?" Ryan asked Helen Cutter some time later that day, as the matter of razors was raised. Helen _did_ have razors, fair enough – for her legs and similar body parts, _not_ suitable for facial hair for a number of reasons.

"I don't think that 'linen' is the proper term here," Helen agreed, "but my point is that I have no idea – I was an anthropologist, not a botanic, and so I can barely recognize a maple tree from a currant bush, but that's it. I wouldn't recognize the linen plant if it was right under our noses."

"Ah. Ok," Ryan said sheepishly: he and the others got used to the fact that Helen was the biggest expert in the Ice Age environment that to understand that she had a flaw was a surprise.

And speaking of surprises... "You know, this is the first time I heard you admit that you don't know something at all," Ryan pointed out to the woman and was rewarded with another glare. "I'm just saying."

Helen opened her mouth to reply, when they heard the barking of "their" Arctic fox (that was also shedding its winter coat for a more modest brown one for spring and summer) – something was afoot.

They went to investigate.

/

The time anomaly was twinkling over a dried-out riverbed, emitting smells quite different from those prevalent of an Ice Age winter: smells of sun and sea and surf and some strange plants as well.

As soon as Ryan smelled those smiles, his face broke into a smile, as had everyone else's faces: "This is home!"

"Oh, Hell no!" Helen swore loudly and angrily, causing everyone to stare at her in surprise: the ex-anthropologist got cross fairly often, but never angry, not truly. "I recognize this smell! It's the late Eocene!"

"The late what?" Joey asked.

"Eocene. It is a time period similar to this one, the Pleistocene, but much earlier in time," Helen explained.

"That's where the dragons were, right?" Joey pressed on.

"_No_. This is partway between them and this time," Helen elaborated, sounding more like her peevish self.

"Then it's settled!" J.W. joined his younger friend. "We go there and try to find out the way home through there. It's better than to go back north and risk the dragons!"

Some explanation is probably required at this moment. During the winter Helen assured them that their best bet was to go back to the time anomaly back in the north that led back into the Mesozoic and try their luck there. Back in winter, this plan was accepted, though without any particular enthusiasm. Now, however, was an enticing new option...Helen looked around and realized that she had no choice at the moment to convince them to abandon it.

"Look, I'm not very happy about dealing with the dinosaurs again," she confessed grudgingly, "and if this wasn't the Eocene I would be just as gang-ho as the rest of you, but..." she paused. "Let's go there, but slowly, carefully, and be ready to back out, okay?"

There was a pause as everyone looked around: Helen did not like to argue all that much and she was not particularly cautious either – so for her to act so out of character meant that things were going to be serious, indeed!

"Helen, whatever lies on the other side...it cannot be as bad as the dinosaurs are, now can it?" Jenny asked cautiously.

Helen just sighed and shook her head. "I think that this is something you have to experience for yourself," was her reply. "Twice I've been in that time period before – once in the early Eocene, the second time in the late, and both times the experiences were among my worst. Well, maybe the third time will be the record breaker..."

And yet despite such ominous predictions the team began to quickly gather their belongings and planned to go forth. Their plans were not particularly complex – just go through this time anomaly and go and seek the next one. The time anomalies, apparently, tended to come and go as they please; the much more constant time anomaly between the Pleistocene Ice Age and the Mesozoic was a rarer occurrence than the more usual, temporal ones.

Sadly, this proved to be the case where people propose, and fate disposes...

/

Late Eocene, 36 MYA

The first thing that struck the time travellers was the drastic change in climate and the environment. In spring Ice Age Europe was warm, but not very – there was plenty of cold winds and rain and so on; the land was forested further south (where the team has wintered), and in the north there was tundra with its permafrost.

In the Eocene the situation was far different: the climate felt hot and tropical, very humid and exhausting, and the land, underfoot, felt...

"Swampy," Ryan grunted in disgust. "We're in a mangrove swamp!"

"What's a mangrove?" asked Joey, visibly restraining himself from swearing as he and the others struggled not to be stuck in the mud.

"The trees – they're called mangroves," Jenny explained. "Back home in Florida they grow as well; when I have visited my grandmother on the Keys I have seen plenty of them." She paused and added. "Say, if you're from the South-"

"Kentucky," J.W. replied, clearly getting the obvious hint. "Never been to Florida, never needed to."

"Go on," Ryan and the others turned to the southern gunslingers with curiosity.

"Not much to go on," J.W. flushed slightly. "Participated in the battle at Bull Run, some smaller fights... Hurricane Sherman came and blew up all – including Terry – to Cricket Creek in Virginia. From there we found the will-o-wisp, and in there – the dragons..." He paused. "I don't like them dragons, and neither does Joey, but, I got to admit that this place does look kind of nasty. Makes travel different too. Any idea where we should go?"

"Nope," Helen shook her head. "The last time I was in this time I had a small boat – made on the other side of a time anomaly – to go around while looking for a way to escape the Eocene. And even so, some of the local whales tried to eat me."

There was a pause. "Whales don't eat people," Jenny said carefully. "At least not on purpose."

"True, but the end of the Eocene period was marked by something called the El Niño that disrupted the climate patterns and caused a minor extinction event," Helen sighed. "I recognize this climate – we're at the end of the Eocene when this climate catastrophe was in the full swing, so we're looking at some hungry times ahead."

"It can't be that bad, can it?" Jenny shook her head. "Plus, the whales-"

"Ever heard of Jonas from the Bible? The big whales at the end of the Eocene resemble rather the sea serpents than the modern whales," Helen said flatly. "And considering that this is a shore of a bay or a lagoon we may end up meeting them."

Jenny frowned and opened her mouth to launch a counterargument, when the barking of their Arctic fox interrupted her. Belatedly, the adults turned around and saw the teen twins (and their pet) confronting (well, not really) some sort a large mammal. Admittedly, it most definitely _was not_ a whale since it had legs and could clearly move on land, but it still looked dangerous, for it had horns. Two horns, to be more precise, splayed out in a roughly V-shaped fashion, slightly curved forwards over a proboscis-like snout. Two small and clearly near-sighted eyes took turns at looking at the teens and their fox, and the equally small brain behind those eyes (and also the much more acute nose) did not like what it processed. Legs, splayed and pigeon-toed, but still powerful, began to paw the ground.

"Children," Jenny said in a small voice, "I believe that it is time for us to go-"

The animal snorted loudly and charged, its head lowered and its horns thrust forwards as if they were splayed falchions.

"Retreat!" Ryan yelled, but it was unnecessary: the others (and him) were already retreating – back into the old time anomaly from which they came in the first place.

Still angry, and consequently even more dumb than the usual, the arsinoitherium followed them.

/

Pleistocene, 30,000 years ago

The Ice Age Europe greeted them with a blast of much colder, dryer air that was much easier to handle, and...with a snarl of an angry bear that had also emerged from its cave and was looking around for the first meal in months.

The arsinoitherium, who never met bears (they did not exist in the Eocene at all) ignored it, but just stood there, pawing the much harder and rockier Pleistocene soil while trying to figure out as to what was wrong.

The bear, who never met such animals either, did not give it any chance to do so. It charged at the other mammal from the side, enveloped its short neck in a classic bear hug and beat into the arsinoitherium's skull.

The arsinoitherium was a powerful animal; pound for pound it was about as strong as a modern day hippopotamus, and it probably would've been able to deal with a bear (a brown bear, not even a cave bear) if it had a chance.

It did not. Ryan fired Helen's big crossbow and the bolt struck right between the prehistoric mammal's ribs. The arsinoitherium collapsed, and the bear, seeing its chance, tore into the softer flesh on the underside of its neck, finishing the job that the bolt started.

"You know, you didn't have to do that," Jenny told Ryan quietly (in case the bear heard them and turned its attention to them – and killing the local tribe's sacred bear was a bad idea on many levels). "We could've sent it back somehow-"

"No, we couldn't," J.W. sighed and pointed to the time anomaly's site – and it (the time anomaly, not its site overall) was gone.

If the team had not fled through it initially, now they would have been stuck on the other side, in the Eocene, with an angry rhinoceros-like animal and the approaching tide...a gloomy perspective.

"Guess it just wasn't meant to be," Ryan said, even as Helen muttered, (mostly to herself) that nothing good ever came from the Eocene, and everyone agreed.

And upon agreeing with Ryan, the team began to plan their trek to the north, where the time anomaly leading to the Mesozoic was waiting.

And on the other side of the now-closed time anomaly a long-lost group of the Greek hoplites, initially sent to recover Phryxes and Hellas, heirs to a throne of one the Greek city-states, walked by the site, failing to notice the brief chain of multiple human tracks, already partially obliterated by the rising tide...

End


	14. Chapter 14

**Melinoe**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Pleistocene, 30,000 yrs ago

It was spring. Though it was still technically an Ice Age, and would remain an Ice Age for millennia to come, for the moment the winter's icy grip was loose and it was actually quite hot outside.

"What's with all the biting insects?" J.W. grumbled as they all covered their unclothed body parts with ochre.

"Don't you have any of them down south?" Jenny replied wryly, even though she was not too pleased with the ochre herself.

"Yes, but not so soon after winter!"

"This is the Ice Age," Helen said wryly, as she was sharpening her knives instead. "When spring comes here, everyone and everything is in a rush, from the biting flies to the mega-beasts."

"The mega-what?"

"The mammoths, the cave bears, et cetera," Helen sighed.

There was a pause as everyone remembered the cave bear. After killing the Arsinoitherium that came through the time anomaly, the cave bear ate it for several days, eating most of it, before other hunters and scavengers arrived. The wolves and cave hyenas kept away, realizing that the bigger carnivore could take them on, even if they attacked as a pack, but then several other cave bears arrived – apparently, not unlike the modern black and brown bears, the cave bear, though mostly a herbivore, didn't mind a bit of meat in its diet as well, especially if it was already dead...

A bear-on-bear fight ensued, which quickly became more than just about meat. Two of the cave bears wrestled each other like a pair of oversized grizzlies, before one of them decided that enough was enough and fled, pursued by the victor, but not too far, as the latter soon returned to court the smaller female. The latter, however, was not quite ready yet, and made this known in a way that was just as loud as the fight itself was. Needless to say, the humans decided that this was enough bear romance for _them_ and quickly left, moving first to a temporary camp away from the mountainside (and the bears), and then simply moving away to the north, where the open tundra – and potential time anomalies – awaited.

"Are you sure that this is where we should go?" Ryan asked Helen quietly soon after their trek began.

"No," Helen confessed, "but something inside me suggests that this is the right way to go, and, well, this is what I always do – listen to my inner voice when in doubt. So, I am going north. You?"

Ryan hesitated: on one hand he did not really like the idea of following anyone's intuition anywhere; on the other - south was the direction of mountains full of angry and frisky cave bears, so for now the tundra did sound like a good place to be.

"Very well, let's go north," he agreed. "But if it doesn't work out – I reserve the right to tell you so."

"Fine," Helen muttered and agreed.

/

Same place, same time, about 10-11 days later

The trees were gradually giving way to the tundra. There was no snow on the ground, though there was plenty of mud, but as long as people did not remain to close to those patches, it worked.

Well, actually, it was more of a fine balancing act – they could not go far away from the water because they needed it, but they could not remain too close to it either, because other animals needed it too. The cave bears may have remained to the south, in the forests and mountains and caves, but other animals, the grazers, were much more plentiful. There were the giant Irish elk, whose males had lost their trademark antlers and were hungry after an autumn and winter of guarding the females. There were the woolly rhinoceroses, odious and short-tempered and hairy – just like Helen's ex-mother-in-law (according to her).

And there were the woolly mammoths – the great hairy giants of the north. Similar to modern elephants in many ways, they were just as woolly as the rhinoceroses were, but more social at the same time. More playful as well.

"They are very amazing," Jenny commented one night, when the group settled down for their supper. "Very much like the elephants I saw once in a circus."

"Perhaps, but just try to remember that this isn't a circus," Helen said wryly, as she and the others pulled out their musical instruments for another impromptu musical session. "There is no ringmaster here and this place is much...more...dangerous..." The last words were said in a different tone as Helen looked at a point behind Jenny and Ryan – and _not_ at the mammoths. "Bloody Hell! What is she doing here?" She got up and walked away from the campfire.

Naturally, the others looked in that direction, and there, standing small behind the herds of woolly mammoths and local prehistoric bison was another person.

"Hey, does that mean that we're saved?" Joey said eagerly: so far the closest they came to a coherent plan was to go through one of the time anomalies that led to the Cretaceous, and from there try their luck with the other time anomalies.

"I don't know," Ryan replied thoughtfully: during the Ice Age spring and summer, evenings and nights were relatively short and well illuminated, and right now, even in the relatively shaky light, he could see that there was something off about the newcomer, especially around their face, but he could not put his finger on exactly what. "Let's wait and see how Helen handles it instead."

And surprisingly – or not, because the newcomer's wrongness was subconsciously evident to everyone – they waited.

/

"Melinoe," Helen greeted the newcomer even as the two of them sat down for a quite, private chat. "What are you doing here?"

"You should ask!" the newcomer was definitely a woman herself, though it was hard to tell with her black-and-white, checked makeup on her face...or maybe it was not makeup at all. "You have something of mine!"

"What?" Helen instinctively asked, before wincing. "The children, right?"

"Yes! Exactly! I had plans for them and for their kin, but what I got now is _another_ civil war in Boeotia – boring! I need them back, Helen, and at the right time too." She paused and added: "Plus, you could probably live without a discovery of Bronze Age Greek hoplites in a late Eocene fossil deposit either."

"The Eocene?" Helen said in a voice that was not too happy, actually.

"Or early Oligocene – I don't really know, this is _your_ thing, Helen. Now, about the children-"

"Are they going to survive?" Helen asked flatly.

"Well...maybe one of them," Melinoe admitted, slightly reluctantly. "Probably the boy. Does it change anything?"

"Probably not," Helen agreed. "Can't we come to a different arrangement? Maybe we can clone them – I mean real clones, not the chronological ones that I usually use."

"You would risk it?" Melinoe sounded surprised for the first time since their discussion.

"Yes, I suppose I shall," Helen nodded. "So?"

"So, all right, this will be interesting to see," Melinoe nodded, getting back onto her feet. "Helen Cutter, you got yourself a deal."

"Here's the passkey," Helen pulled out a small passkey in question. "Enjoy. But don't overdo it."

"You're too kind," Melinoe smiled, and it was not a particularly human smile. "But I'll remember this." She turned around and vanished in the dispersing twilight of an early northern summer. "See you... in time..." And she was gone.

/

"What was that all about? Who was that?" the questions came to Helen from left and right, but she was even quieter than her usual self was – and then, soon after the sun came fully out, they saw a time anomaly that caused the questions to end, at least for a while...

_End of Melinoe_


End file.
